How to make your caravan interior look bigger

Even though your caravan is smaller than most peoples’ garages, here are some tips that you can apply to make the caravan interior look and feel bigger.

But why would you want to make your caravan interior look bigger?

Well, since it’s such a small space, it can feel cramped inside the caravan, especially if you’re stuck inside for extended periods of time (hullo worldwide pandemic!)

With these simple tips, you’ll be able to make your caravan interior look and feel bigger, giving the illusion of more space for you to enjoy.

Of course, these don’t apply to just caravans. You can apply these to your motorhome interior, or even your campervan interior.

Now, if you’re planning on renovating your caravan, you will be able to incorporate all of these tips if you wanted to. But if you’re not, then some of them won’t apply.

So I’ve separated these tips into 2 sections, renovation tips, and non-renovation tips.

Renovation tips

White paint

If you’ve been following all the DIY caravan renovations like I do, you will know that 99.9% of caravan renovators will completely paint the interior of the caravan white.

I know that some people hate the stark white and it makes them feel like they’re in a clinic or something; but there’s good reason for all the white.

Initially I thought the white painting was just to cover up all the brown woodwork on some of the older caravans; and while that’s also true, the bigger reason for painting white is that it lightens and brightens up the interior, making it feel bigger and more spacious.

You don’t have to stick to just white paint though. Any light colours will open up the room and make it feel like you have more space.

You can then break up the white with complimentary colours and/or textures so that it feels cozy and warm, rather than stark and clinical.

Minimal window treatments

Windows are a premium in any caravan or motorhome.

It’s important to make sure that any window treatments are minimal so that the valance, blinds and drapes don’t crowd in around the window, reducing how much you can see out and the amount of light coming into the caravan.

So rather than having a valance, blinds, a sheer curtain AND drapes, cut it down to just what you need.

If you have a valance, make sure it’s not hanging too low so that it’s covering too much of the window pane.

And if you have drapes, have a way of securing them on the side so that they don’t cover the window pane when they’re open.

Light up the corners

When the corners of a room are a bit darker than the rest of the room, it can make the room feel smaller.

This isn’t really a problem if your caravan or motorhome windows go right into the corners. But if not, try and light up any dark corners with a lamp, wall lights or downlighting.

Non-renovation tips

Declutter

By far, the most important step in making your caravan interior feel bigger, is to declutter and downsize. (We’ve got more info here if you need help downsizing)

Being in a caravan naturally forces you to downsize anyway. You just don’t have the space to bring too much stuff.

But it’s still easy to acquire more and more things and not realise that we’re starting to clutter up our space.

In a caravan or motorhome (whether you’re living in it full-time, or it’s just your holiday home on wheels) it’s important to keep the ‘stuff’ down to a minimum.

We now live in our caravan full-time, and once we had downsized from our flat to the caravan, we adopted a one-in-one-out rule. If we brought anything new into the caravan, it had to replace something that was already there.

Organised storage systems

In a caravan, along with decluttering, everything needs to have a  place, especially for travel.

So having your storage spaces ( (like cupboards, drawers, wardrobes, under the bed and external hatches) well organised will mean that you know exactly where to put everything and it’s not a game of Tetris every time you need to tidy up.

We’ve got some tips here for organising your caravan (or motorhome) kitchen and for organising your caravan wardrobe.

Mirrors to expand the space

It’s an old interior decorators trick to use mirrors on the wall to give the illusion of depth to a room.

In the same way that light colours on the walls make them feel less enclosing (not sure if that’s the right word, but I hope you know what I mean), a mirror makes the space feel (or at least, look) bigger than it really is.

I know there’s not usually a lot of wall space in a motorhome or caravan, but you may be able to hang a mirror near the entrance or on the back of the bathroom door.

Just make sure that it’s very securely fastened!

Don’t overcrowd the walls

Along the same lines as the minimal window treatments above, you should also keep things on the wall, to a minimum.

Lots of photos, artwork or other decorative features can make the space feel smaller, so be judicious in your selection of things to put on the wall.

This also applies to too many ornaments around the space. Lots of ornaments clutters up your visual field and can make the caravan interior feel smaller than it actually is.

I hope that with these tips you will be able to make your caravan interior look bigger and more spacious.

What other tricks have you learnt for making your caravan or motorhome interior look, and therefore, feel, bigger?